in which i am (officially?) a wild woman

Hello there!  The dead weight of this cold weather finally lifted a bit, so I was able to brave the great outdoors once again and I decided to brighten things up a bit!  I originally bought and altered this dress for Christmas a couple of years ago so it always feels a little bit "holiday" when I wear it.  The gold tights probably don't help, but oh well :)

(dress: thrifted; belt: urban outfitters; tights: hue; shoes: seychelles; earrings: bought in austin, tx)

This past weekend was pretty wild!  I've sure been getting my girl time in lately.  On Thursday night my lady friends and I had Art Club at my apartment, drank Heady Topper and ate snacks and had another one of our epic conversations about femininity and day moons and the power dynamics between men and women and taking control of to-be-looked-at-ness and women in combat and combat in general and the unfortunate  way in which our society encourages the expression of masculinity through violence... and then they went home, and on Friday I headed to a house in the woods for my semi-official initiation into the tribe of WWW (wild women of Woodbury), and I didn't emerge from those woods until Sunday afternoon.

I have always been awed and inspired by the WWW.  They're all such passionate, intelligent, wonderful (wild) women, and I feel so lucky to have been raised under the umbrella of their influence.  I also know I am fortunate to have some of their daughters as my very best friends/soul sisters/future WWW (and hopefully we will manage to carry on the tradition of this epic weekend for decades to come).  There was a lot of cosmo-drinking, southern-style food-eating, puppet-making (and a somewhat scandalous puppet show on Saturday night), ping-pong playing, hula-hooping (I will figure out how to be awesome at this... mark my words), and an incredibly epic snowshoe over fields and through forests and over the top of a hill that looked out around all of the Green and White mountains (the weekend was hosted at Switchell extraordinaire Susan's house in Cabot and the surrounding land is amazing) and culminated in a campfire powwow with soups and spicy sausage.  I was so exhausted on Sunday that I when I got home all I the energy I could manage to muster went into watching Downton Abbey (and I still fell asleep on the couch).

Anyway, THANK YOU to the WWW for allowing me to attend!  It was really nice to get to know everyone a little bit better after all of these years :)

in which i know bare legs are insanity

Every morning there is a point where I think, I've gone too far. My fingers aren't going to recover from their painful numbness (oxymoron? maybe, but that's the sensation) this time. I've officially frozen them past the point of no return. And then the feeling (and the color, and the flexibility) returns, and my mind tucks the pain away, and I get up and do it all over again the next day. Blogging is masochism.

(sweater: target; skirt/belt: thrifted; scarf: vintage; socks: kohl's; sunglasses: kinney drugs (!); shoes: lulu*s)

I tried my best to get back on the color train today. This outfit feels essentially "Caitlin." This is the sort of thing I used to wear all the time, back when I actually took an extra fifteen minutes out of my morning to tease my hair (because somehow the outfit wouldn't work, in my mind, without the big hair). Another thing that doesn't work without the big hair: these sunglasses. For some reason I feel like they accentuate my flat head, or they're too retro to be worn without an equally retro 'do. Whatever, I'm weird...

Tonight is Art Club! I have been informed that the boyfriend of one of our number will be making pizzas for us, so that's awesome (and he's not even attending!). You know times have changed when the men are cooking dinner for the social events of their ladies ;) Now that's what I call progress.

in which i am a hat thief

I feel a bit like Paul Bunyan in this get-up. Or a gnome.

(cardigan: target; hat/blazer: stolen(!) from mom; jeans: pacsun; boots: seychelles; belt: thrifted)

I am such a thief. I stole this hat from my mother a couple of years ago, wore it all the time, and then somehow lost it. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it in the outerwear accessory drawer at my parent's house this weekend. Maybe mom stole it back? Anyway, it's in my clutches once again. (Mom, if you really want it, I'll return it...)

Also, I need a haircut like craaaazy. I haven't had a cut since last November. The beginning of last November. This is not abnormal for me--I usually allow it to grow until it starts looking irreconcilably ratty--but I always hate to lose even a little bit of length. So often I contemplate going really short (bob-length, perhaps?), but I always lose my nerve. I'm actually pretty surprised that it grew as much as it did this year. I had really short hair in high school (and it looked terrible, in retrospect), and it took all four years of college to get where it is today! Why is it that when you're trying to grow your hair out it takes ages and when it's already long it just grows like mad? This is what happens to my hair when I shower at night, braid it, and sleep on it. It's the only way I can get my hair to hold any sort of wave.

Last night (after being pulled over by the police on my way to the gym) I changed my headlight bulb all by myself (in the dark, while holding a flashlight in my teeth). I felt like one badass lass, let me tell you. While it's easy for me to just turn those tasks over to K (he changed my battery last weekend), it's nice to take charge every once and a while. I think it's important for us ladies to be able to take care of ourselves!

Funny Story:

My college girlfriends and I got a flat tire while driving back from our Cape Cod girl's weekend a couple of summers ago, and we immediately all got out and started attempting to change the tire (something I do know how to do, thankyouverymuch). All was going swimmingly until we realized we were missing a very important key (I can't remember what for, but something was locked). Meanwhile, a cop pulled up behind us to flash lights and warn other cars that we were down&out--and the cop was a woman! She told us she was really impressed that we were changing the tire ourselves, since she had happened upon plenty of able-bodied men in her day who couldn't be bothered to handle it. Finally, when we realized the situation was quite hopeless because of the aforementioned missing key, we called AAA. The tow truck came to get us, and guess what? The tow truck driver was also a woman!! I got a huge kick out of that. Women are awesome.

Anyway, long story. Also, it's Wednesday.

Ohhhhhh we're halfway the-ere...